Advice needed whether I should retake A levels after NS

Momento SG

I am currently 20 years old and I would be ording soon in a few months. I took my A levels back in 2013 and my scores were: PCME: BBB/B, GP: C, PW:B, Chinese: B

I currently have a placing in NUS Mechanical Engineering, which i do not have an interest in…. Moreover, the courses which i have interest in such as Chemical Engineering requires almost straight As. Hence, I am considering of retaking my A levels after NS, do you think its wise to do so? Would really appreciate some advice here. Smile

UltimaOnline SG

Definitely. Better to waste 1 year retaking A levels, than to waste the rest of your life in a profession or career you have no interest in.

eagle SG

To me, all Engineering degrees are almost the same. The first year of study is the same. And many engineering grads probably don't work as engineers later on in life.

Key is, have you considered whether the jobs that require only chemical engineering degree are the jobs you want to do? How about jobs that require the mechanical engineering degree? And how about jobs that only require an engineering degree or just a degree?

You could also consider applying for common engineering route, then attempt to enter Chemical engineering from there should your first year do well, instead of wasting a year. Honestly, you might not do as well in chemical engineering, it being a super competitive degree, and touch wood, you might find yourself wasting 4 good years after wasting a year retaking A Levels, assuming you succeed.

Mechanical engineering has a much bigger pool of students, and the bell curve god is usually kinder to really hardworking students. In other words, it's probably a wee bit easier to score for the hardworking students.

Another question for you to ponder: do you want to be a small fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a small pond?

This is coming from an Electrical Engineering First Class Honours grad, who does not work in the Electrical Engineering sector now, apart from programming my own apps and creating/updating my own websites in my spare time.

Momento SG

Hi eagle, is it difficult to get a first class honours in electrical engineering? Will hard work be sufficient to get me there despite me being not as smart as others. Would share with me more about electrical engineering as in what would I learn during the 4 years. Really appreciate your advice.

eagle SG

It is definitely difficult to get. I had many advantages which allowed me to get it easier than most others.

1. I have programming background due to my CCAs in secondary school. This was a HUGE advantage.
2. I have learned most of the physics needed in year 1 and 2 due to having participated in physics olympiad in during my JC, which means I already learned uni stuff during JC days. I didn't need to study it much during uni as it was way too easy for me; in fact I taught my friends.
3. I had GREAT friends and study companions from my army mates
4. I was super super super motivated and really love the modules. Some of my friends thought I didn't need to sleep. There are days where I have 12 hours of lessons, and still worked through the night to finish up my lab report to be submitted the next morning.

About electrical engineering, I would say the first year is the same for all engineering, regardless which discipline. From the 2nd year onwards, there will be some differences, electrical engineering focusing more on the electrical side, signals, programming, logic gates etc. 3rd and 4th year you will further specialise in the different fields of electrical engineering. There's semiconductors, electrical power, electromagnetic signals, computer hardware, etc.

But don't think about electrical engineering just because I say so. I liked it because I really love circuits, batteries, wires, gadgets, etc. But if you are undecided, mechanical engineering is really just as good.

In fact, if I'm not wrong, mechanical and electrical engineering are the two biggest engineering cohorts, and the two disciplines that are able to find jobs the easiest.

Momento SG

But my physics is really weak and I heard from others that one may not do well in engineering even if he works hard. Sad

eagle SG

It's the same for any of the uni courses. Working hard isn't enough. One needs to work smart as well.

By working smart, it means

1) putting in extra hours to research out-of-notes knowledge

2) reading the textbooks and finding out, as well as learning how to implement, extra knowledge not covered in detail by the lecturer

3) for open book exams, how you prepare your materials. For e.g., for one such exams, I summarized everything according to how past year papers were set into just 14 pages. During the exams, while everyone was flipping their 200 over pages of textbooks, I flipped only 14 pages to find my needed answers. Of course I got an A for that.

For programming EOY open book, I prepared a set of skeleton codes that were almost copy and paste for use during the final sem open book exams. Not many people did that. Just by sharing that with a friend of mine, he went from not knowing how to do programming properly to scoring B+ for that module.

4) Keep thinking, practicing and asking questions.

One must be very motivated to do well, as there are numerous distractions around during uni time.